


sketchbooks upon sketchbooks

by anonemone



Series: handprint on my heart [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Multi, should i warn for some weird codependency thing going on?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 21:29:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6874105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonemone/pseuds/anonemone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say you find yourself in high school, but Clary and Simon don’t need that. They’ve always had each other.</p><p>Or, a tale of two best friends, told in seven sketches</p>
            </blockquote>





	sketchbooks upon sketchbooks

**Author's Note:**

> There's a reference to the [first fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6849415) in this series near the end, but you don't have to read that to get this, I think. This can actually also work in the canon verse, with some squinting.
> 
> Also, I love this dynamic, but it's not entirely healthy? So maybe don't do this at home, kids.

**_One._ **

They get married at eight, and it’s the start of forever.

****

**_Two._ **

“Clary, I love you.”

She laughs. “I love you too.”

“No, Clary, I—“

Clary looks at him.

_Oh._

**_Three._ **

A part of him hates her for turning him down, for not loving him the same way he loves her, even if he knows it’s unfair.

Except of course, he can never hate her. But he can’t face her. He knows that if he does, he’ll just fall in love all the more, and he’s not sure if he’ll ever be satisfied with _just friends_. So he avoids her.

It’s barely existing, but Simon doesn’t know what else to do.

 

**_Four._ **

He opens the door to his room and there she is, curled up on his bed.

Simon sits down next to her, and Clary scoots over and clings to his lap. He pulls her up so they’re looking at each other. Her face is pink and splotchy, and her hair sticks wetly to her face, and it hits Simon that he’s the one who did this to her.

She brings her hand up to cup his cheek, and it’s wet with her tears. “I can fall in love with you, if you want. Just—“

Her voice breaks, and Simon’s heart along with it. “Just, please don’t leave me.”

Simon looks at Clary, beautiful, wonderful Clary, who he never dreamed would ever be sat crying on his bed because of him, and resolves to never see her hurt again.  He pulls her into his arms, and knows she understands.

“I do love you,” she says quietly against his shoulder, and Simon is glad to note that she sounds less broken now.

“I know.”

****

**_Five._ **

It’s Saturday night. Clary is camped out on the couch, watching _White House Down_. It should be hilarious, but for some unknown reason, she feels miserable.

That’s a lie, though, because she does know why she’s miserable. Simon has a _date_.

It’s not that she wants to be the one on a date with him. She tries to imagine Simon bringing her home after a nice dinner and kissing her goodbye on her doorstep, and _that_ thought amuses her so much she almost falls off the couch.

And yet—

And yet it’s Saturday night, she’s eating so much microwave popcorn and marathoning bad action movies, and all she can think is _he should be here with me_.

 

**_Six._ **

“Eh,” he shrugs, “Maureen’s great, but it was never going to work out.”

Clary can’t get herself to feel guilty for the first clear breath she’s taken in weeks.

****

**_Seven._ **

The cynics think they’re just sleeping together. The romantics think they’re soulmates. Clary and Simon see them sometimes, the looks sent their way, jealous of them and what they have.

They’re all wrong, of course, but they don’t bother correcting them. How could they? How could they explain that they’re already so deep in each other’s bones that sex is superfluous? How do they explain that they’re less soulmates than fragments of a single soul in two different bodies?

Then Jace barrels into their life, all pretty smirks and false bravado, and what else can they do but fall in love? They do it like they do everything else, hand-in-hand and in-sync. The looks gain a judging edge, and even Simon’s mom takes them aside to caution them. Everyone’s afraid that they’ll destroy Jace, get him caught in the gravity of their orbit around each other.

They show up in school in matching shirts and make Jace wear that hat and it’s them shouting to the world that Clary is Simon’s and Simon is Clary’s and Jace is _theirs_. That’s all the explanation they deserve.


End file.
